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Forum:How do the Reapers ensure that they kill everybody?
I was wondering if anybody had any ideas as to how the Reapers ensured that they killed everybody. What I mean by this is that they don't do something similar to the Covenant in Halo where they glass the planet so it is literally leveled. As can be seen on Feros, the cities that Reapers attack are left relatively intact. Could people not hide in the rubble and scavenge food until the Reapers thought they killed everybody on the planet and left? 01:58, July 28, 2011 (UTC) Bioware hasn't really gone into the exact methods they use to ensure everyone is taken but I assume most of the time it is because most people aren't aware what is happening. All the times before, the Reapers knocked out the Citadel and closed off all the Mass relays as well as FTL communications thereby isolating each system. These systems wouldn't have known what was happening until it was too late. To ensure they have everyone, the Reapers would then sweep from system to system, using indoctrinated sleeper agents to ferret out all surviving members of the race. We know for sure that some protheans hid on Ilos during the last cycle but that was only because of some type of cryogenic suspension. Any other survivors would have been left without sufficient supplies and numbers to maintain a viable population level. I'm sure we will find out in ME 3 how the Reapers plan on fighting their ground war. --Iiams571 02:41, July 28, 2011 (UTC) They probably make extensive planetary sweeps when local forces have been defeated and the Reaper occupation begins. Indoctrinated agents would help facilitate this as they would probably fight alongside various forms of Husks against any form of rebellion. Like I said, extensive planetary sweeps would ferret out anyone hiding. After that, the Reapers would simply abandon their indoctrinated slaves on the lifeless planet, where they would die of starvation, dehydration or exposure. It should also be noted that several planets across the galaxy have been shown to wiped out through orbital bombardment. Aggreed. Each Reaper genocide takes a few centeries so we know they do take their time. That said there is a chance some small groups, like Ilos, survived. But to avoid detection they need to limit use of technology and hunt food for themselves. On their home planet they may survive, but on another world were very little may be edible and to a culture use to the conforts of technology, they would have trouble adapting.-- 15:11, July 28, 2011 (UTC) I hadn't really thought of it before, but if the Collectors are only from the last cycle, I'm not exactly sure what the Reapers used before. I'm thinking the above posts are on the right track, but I've got a couple ideas to add. Possibly, the Collectors are just the latest in a long line of species modified to suit the Reapers' needs. Maybe as the unsuitable species are wiped out, the species chosen to form the new reaper is abducted by the (then-current) Collectors. Keep in mind, the previous cycle was witnessed by the protheans, whom were deemed unsuitable to be reaped. We don't exactly how the Reapers normally operate. One can assume they eliminate enemy vessels on sight, though, leaving just the earthbound population to deal with. I guess they scan each planet for life and tech before deciding how to act. They also seem to search databases for records. Vigil says something about Ilos being spared because the only records of it were on the Citadel, and those databases were presumed lost in the Reaper attack. The Dragon's Teeth have been shown to be able to indoctrinate people, and we don't know if Reapers are better at indoctrination in groups (scary thought). Maybe the Collectors were actually a new method of harvesting, and the dragon's teeth are the usual way: they're sent out into population centres and steal their genetic material while leaving behind husks, which can act as foot soldiers until they are no longer needed.Delspencerdeltorro 03:07, October 17, 2011 (UTC) My guess is that the Marauders and other ground forces kill or take the survivors Generally, the Reapers would have complete access of the census data of the entire galactic population. They'd be able to go to every homeworld and every colony and wipe everyone out, plus they'd most likely be able to access tracking data on most registered ships in the galaxy, and could hunt them down. It's likely that there were survivors of EVERY civilization after becoming extinct (such as how Ilos remained operational and untouched because it wasn't officially in the Protheans' files at the Citadel), but their populations would be far too small to sustain a suitable population, and would eventually die out themselves. In short, the Reapers would make a clean sweep over what would likely be a few dozen years, destroying everything they could, and indoctrinating everything else, and what would be left over wouldn't have enough resources to continue on for any more than a generation or two. The entire galaxy would pretty much suffer the same fate that the drell homeworld suffered. --HellfireDezzy 14:39, March 2, 2012 (UTC) :Seconded on the census data, and overall galactic records. Notice in Vancouver at the beginning of the ME3 demo, how the Reapers are being pretty gentle with the city? There's a lot of destruction, but the Reapers could have bombarded the place from orbit and killed everybody. They're sparing the populace for harvesting, but they're also (intentionally or not) leaving computer systems intact, from which they can learn a lot about their prey. If I were the Reapers, I'd try to take the major population centers intact, only resorting to orbital bombardment if the cost of taking them would be too high. Capital worlds and other administrative centers are especially important to take without inflicting too much damage. (And if I recall correctly, Vigil mentioned something about the Reapers capturing all the records kept at the Citadel, the last time around.) Once they have the census data, they can proceed to efficiently mop up the rest of each galactic civilization. After they've gotten most of the population, they can proceed to exterminate the last few survivors, or maybe use some kind of blanket indoctrination tactic to make them turn themselves in. Finally, when they're completely done harvesting and wiping out as many traces as they can of the civilizations they're destroyed, the smart thing to do would be to tailor some bioweapons specifically against the species they've taken, and spread them over all habitable worlds in the galaxy, to help ensure there are no survivors. (It might even be a good move for them to make some kind of genophage-like sterility plague, and spread it immediately when they arrive in the galaxy, to make the final stages of their job easier.) *Shudder.* Diyartifact 16:32, March 2, 2012 (UTC) According to Vigil, the genocide of the Prothean Empire took almost four-hundred years, my thoughts, the Reapers take their time. That and they've been doing this cycle of extinction for (at least) 37,000,000 years (740 cycles), so they've had a lot of time for developing stratedgies. VTFuzzle 14:45 March 3, 2013 (UTC) Just a thought, but Javik seems to be an example of the Reapers not necessarily killing everyone. And they don't have to, do they? They only have to wipe out enough of a race to ensure its extinction, so even if they happen to accidentally leave one Prothean behind, for example, he's not worth bugging over because he's not going to restart the race on his own, is he? I mean, I could be totally wrong, and I think it's definitely possible for the Reapers to kill everyone over the course of several centuries, especially with the ability to turn other species into Reapers themselves. But maybe you don't have to get rid of everybody. Just almost everybody. RedAces 08:14, March 12, 2012 (UTC)